Australia

Australian shares are set to open higher, after a Tesla-led rally on Wall St.

ASX futures were up 0.2% or 12 points as of 8:00am on Tuesday, suggesting a higher open.

A surge in Tesla's stock helped the market extend its rally to start a busy week for corporate earnings and economic data.

Major U.S. indexes edged higher Monday. The S&P 500 rose 0.3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ticked upward by 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.4%, or 146 points.

In commodity markets, Brent crude oil was down 1.1% to US$88.52 a barrel, while gold was flat at US$2,335.19.

In local bond markets, the yield on Australian 2 Year government bonds was down at 4.15% while the 10 Year yield was also down at 4.48%. US Treasury notes were down, with the 2 Year yield at 4.98% and the 10 Year yield at 4.61%.

The Australian dollar was 65.65 US cents, up from its previous close of 65.64. The Wall Street Journal Dollar Index, which tracks the US dollar against 16 other currencies, was down at 100.10.

Asia

Chinese shares closed higher, supported by real estate shares. Investor cheered the news that home-buying restrictions were removed in Chengdu, a major Chinese city, which raised hopes that more Tier-1 cities will relax their rules as well. Poly Developments & Holdings Group added 7.4% and China Vanke rose by its daily permitted maximum of 10%. Semiconductor shares were also broadly higher. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. put on 2.35% and LONGi Green Energy Technology was 2.0% higher. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.8% higher at 3113.04 and the Shenzhen Composite Index was 2.3% higher; the ChiNext Price Index ended 3.5% higher.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index closed 0.5% higher at 17746.91, led by property stocks. Sentiment was likely supported by news of another city in China easing curbs on home buying, which has raised market expectations that other Tier-1 cities will follow suit, says Daiwa property analyst William Wu. That's sparking cautious hopes that the ailing property sector could finally be improving. Among the advancers, Country Garden Services jumped 11%, Longfor Group rose 7.1% and China Overseas Land & Investment was 4.0% higher. The Hang Seng Properties index rose 1.7%. Among the decliners, Sinopharm Group fell 6.3% after reporting a decline in quarterly profit, while Trip.com Group lost 5.0% and Meituan shed 3.6%.

Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.8% to close at 37934.76, extending gains after the Bank of Japan left its interest-rate target unchanged Friday following its first rate increase in 17 years in March. The central bank's measures of underlying inflation suggest that the case for further policy tightening is diminishing, economists at Capital Economics say in a note. Among the best performers on the benchmark index, Keyence Corp. climbed 7.8%, Nippon Sanso Holdings added 5.5%, and T&D Holdings was up 5.35%. The 10-year JGB yield was up 3.5bps at 0.925%.

India's benchmark Sensex index rose 1.3% to end at 74671.28 amid broad gains led by bank stocks. The U.S. FOMC meeting and U.S. labor-market data are on investors' radar this week. Among major stocks, ICICI Bank was 4.7% higher, IndusInd Bank added 2.9% and HDFC Bank gained 1.3%. Decliners include Wipro, which was 0.4% lower, HCL Technologies, which dropped 5.8%, and ITC, which was 0.4% lower.

Europe

The FTSE 100 rose 0.1% to 8149.21 in late trade, having scaled yet another record intraday peak of 8189.14, with heavyweight miners mostly pushing higher. "As U.S. markets have so often demonstrated, record highs tend to beget more record highs," writes Chris Beauchamp, analyst at online trading platform IG. While the FTSE 100 is still lagging behind peers in terms of its return for the year so far, the procession of new highs "should continue to attract fresh flows to the U.K. market," he says.

European stock indexes lagged behind, with Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 down 0.2%, though the Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.1%.

North America

A surge in Tesla's stock helped the market extend its rally to start a busy week for corporate earnings and economic data.

Major U.S. indexes edged higher Monday. The S&P 500 rose 0.3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ticked upward by 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.4%, or 146 points.

Stocks have ground out gains over the past week despite hotter-than-expected inflation data that has cast doubt on Wall Street's hopes for interest-rate cuts in the coming months. That shift in expectations has fueled a run-up in government-bond yields -- and, with them, borrowing costs across the U.S.

The market's gradual acceptance of higher-for-longer rates seemed overdue to investors such as Jim Masturzo, chief investment officer of multiasset strategies at Research Affiliates. If the Fed were to cut rates as many times as the market had priced in earlier this year, he said, it would suggest a drastic and potentially painful economic slowdown.

"To me, that is a risky scenario," Masturzo said.

A Federal Reserve meeting set to conclude Wednesday could give investors additional hints regarding whether the central bank might lower rates by year's end. That update will be followed Friday by the April jobs report, which will provide the latest snapshot of a U.S. economy that continued expanding in the first quarter.

The benchmark 10-year yield drifted downward Monday to 4.612% but remains 0.752 percentage point higher since the beginning of 2024. That has attracted investors to the safe payouts on government debt, pressuring stocks for much of April and putting all three indexes on track for their worst monthly performances of the year.

"There is no cost to me waiting -- to avoid that volatility, that choppiness -- while getting paid," said Jason Hsu, chief investment officer at Rayliant Global Advisors.

Hsu's firm is more attracted to bets in countries such as Japan, where the government Monday moved to prop up the yen after it hit a multidecade low against the dollar.

Although many traders have shied away from riskier assets in recent weeks, one of the year's most volatile stocks led the S&P 500 on Monday. Tesla shares bounded 15% higher, their largest one-day gain since 2021, after Chief Executive Elon Musk won Beijing's blessing to roll out the company's driver-assistance service in China.

The automaker's share price has nevertheless slumped 22% this year amid a darkening outlook for electric-vehicle sales growth.

Shares of Fulton Financial increased 7.6% following the acquisition of regional bank Republic First in a government-backed deal. Media conglomerate Paramount Global rose 2.9% ahead of the evening news that the CBS owner's chief executive, Bob Bakish, would step down amid sales talks.

Shares in Google-parent Alphabet, which jumped Friday after better-than-expected earnings, retreated 3.3% Monday, while Instagram owner Meta Platforms shed 2.4%. The two stocks' losses turned the S&P 500's communications-services sector into the index's big laggard.

Earnings season will pick up speed Tuesday, when results from Amazon.com, McDonald's and Coca-Cola are due.